Saturday, August 1, 2009

There is no doubt about it the Royals have been disappointing this year. They have problems scoring runs, bullpen problems, and defense. General Manager Dayton Moore was given the highest payroll in team history of $70 million dollars this year to assemble this team.

$70 million might have produced a much better team if the minor leagues were not neglected for the years previous to his arrival. If the minors were producing good players each year then you could lock them up for that price until they become eligible for free agency after 7 years of major league service.

Without a stocked minor league system, Moore had to rely on what $70 million could get him on the free agent market and via trades. But what does $70 million buy you in major league baseball? $70 million does not get you much especially if you are trying to stock a major league while waiting for your young talent to emerge.

Much attention and blame has been focused on Moore for the performance of the Royals this year. Granted he did make the deals to bring in the players we have this year but he got what $70 million dollars buys. With this in mind, owner David Glass does not have much room to complain. This might be why he is mostly silent on the performance of the Royals and absent from attending games in Kansas City. Fans have noticed his presence sitting behind home plate at games at Houston and Boston rather than at Kauffman Stadium. Glass can’t be too critical of his team because he realizes that he himself is the chief reason behind the poor performance on the field.

As for the minor league talent, the best of the talent is still in the lower levels of the organization and will take 3-5 years to develop. One important thing to consider is that minor league talent does not always produce into top notch major league players. The Royals are banking their future on nearly 100% development from the minors. That is like putting all your money into one stock instead of spreading your risk around. Money for the development of the Royals needs to be spread more evenly between the minor leagues, free agents, and trades so all your beans are not in one basket.

The Royals are in a vicious cycle with Glass as the owner. Glass won’t put money into the team because the team is bad. The team won’t get any better quickly unless more money is pumped into the payroll. In order for Moore to attract top major league talent, he needs to be given the payroll to compete with teams in New York, Boston, and Los Angeles among others. Otherwise, Moore is putting on the field exactly what David Glass is paying for.

3
comments:

Disagree. It's easy to say "duuuuhhhh...spend money" as if you're Soren Petro. But the Royals' problem, going back to Allard Baird, is less HOW MUCH money they spend than WHO they spend it on. If you're waiting for the Royals to match the Yankees or the Red Sox in payroll, I'm afraid you're going to be very disappointed. Spending $12M per year for Guillen is bad; spending $3M per year for what is essentially a replacement player in Betancourt and Jacobs (3M each) is worse. A tighter budget just mandates good decisions, and those are in precious short supply these days at the K.

Honestly, if I were David Glass, I'd consider cutting the payroll back to 45M per year. If we're going to suck anyway, he might as well pocket the extra 25M.

What high profile impact player will want to come here if the payroll is only $70 million? The reason why the Royals are getting the type of players they have is because there is not enough money to sign better players.